Authors: Darren G. Burton
Night Realm (38 page)
In a crouch he peeked over the hay bales and spied Michael. It was the very first time he’d laid eyes on the evil brother and something about the man/vampire looked menacing and very scary. On the surface he appeared normal enough, but there was something extremely evil emanating from within, like some sort of malevolent aura.
Kneeling on the floor, as if awaiting execution, was a middle-aged man dressed in a grey bathrobe. He had bruises on his face and blood dripping from a mouth wound. Lying motionless on the floor behind Michael was a woman, possibly the captured man’s wife. Ryan wasn’t sure, but she looked like she might be dead.
“This is how you do it,” Michael said, staring intently at Travis and Chelsea. “This is the last time I’ll show you. After this we move onto the next house and you two are going to feed.” He paused for effect. “And you know what happens if you don’t.”
“You won’t kill me,” Travis said bravely. “I’m your brother.”
“You don’t deserve to be called my brother, Travis. You’re a major disappointment. You always have been.”
Ryan placed the bag of vials on the ground and put the chainsaw on top of the pile of hay. He gripped the pistol in both hands and steadied his aim by resting his arms on top of a bale.
Michael grabbed the man by his thinning hair and latched his fangs onto the man’s throat. It all happened so quickly that Ryan barely had time to react. He fired the gun, striking Michael in the back of the head. The vampire flinched from the bullet’s impact, but didn’t let go. Ryan stood up and fired again, hitting Michael in the shoulder. A third bullet struck him in the head again. The vampire finally released his victim, but it was too late. The middle-aged man slumped down to the ground, dead.
With fangs exposed and dripping fresh blood, Michael glared at Ryan. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Travis and Chelsea hadn’t moved. They just stared at Ryan as if he was some sort of ghost that had materialized out of nowhere. Ryan flicked Chelsea a quick glance, but couldn’t read her expression. He returned his attention to Michael, who had blood streaming from the bullet wounds. Ryan fired at him a fourth time, then a fifth and a sixth. Michael danced under the impact of the bullets fired in quick succession, but he didn’t go down. When Ryan went to fire again, the gun just clicked uselessly. The magazine was empty. He tossed it aside, reached behind him for the chainsaw and pulled the cord. The saw roared to life.
Ryan stepped away from the door and moved courageously toward Michael. The vampire, blood still streaming from the bullet wounds, eyed him curiously as he approached. A sadistic smile curled the corners of his mouth. Ryan brandished the saw in front of him. For some strange reason he didn’t feel afraid. He kept his eyes trained on Michael. The vampire backed away from the body on the floor. Next thing Ryan knew Michael was up in the air, hovering just below the ceiling
, floating effortlessly.
Chelsea and Travis still hadn’t budged. It was like they were transfixed and rooted to the spot. Maybe Michael had some sort of power over them? Ryan chanced at glance at his sister. There was fear in her eyes. That glance cost him dearly.
Michael was upon him in a flash. He moved so quickly that Ryan hadn’t seen him coming. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air, the saw falling from his grasp. He crashed into a pile of hay and a bale toppled onto his chest. He pushed it off and sat up. Michael was standing right in front of him, looking down at him like he was some annoying little insect that needed to be squashed.
He grinned, fangs still jutting down from his upper jaw. “I know who you are,” he said. “You’re Chelsea’s brother. Come to her rescue, have you?”
“Leave him alone,” Chelsea called out.
Michael turned toward her, which gave Ryan just the break he needed to grab the chainsaw. It buzzed on the ground to the left of Michael’s feet. He grabbed it, gave it a rev and swung the lethal blade in a wide arc. Michael sensed what was happening and put out a hand to ward off the blow. The saw sliced the hand clean off. Blood pumped from the stump. Michael swung viciously and his right fist connected flush on Ryan’s jaw. The strike was so hard that it should have shattered his jaw in ten places, or at least knocked him unconscious. Neither happened. Ryan was dazed and knocked flat on the ground, but he still felt surprisingly alert. He got to his feet and leaped up onto a pile of hay bales, a feat he would never have been able to accomplish before the vaccine injection. Miraculously the chainsaw was still held firmly in his grasp.
Michael came after him. He didn’t bother leaping, he just flew. Ryan jabbed at the vampire’s midsection with the blade, but Michael easily evaded the strike. Ryan tried again, and once more Michael ducked out of reach.
Trying desperately to act purely on instinct and not think clear thoughts that the vampire could read, Ryan took a chance and lunged forward with every ounce of strength he had. Michael reacted a fraction too late. As Ryan flew through the air, holding the chainsaw out at full stretch in front of him, the curved end of the blade caught the vampire in the abdomen, just below the sternum. The blade churned through flesh and bone and drilled a hole clean through him. Michael dropped to the ground, the saw still stuck in his body.
As Ryan fell, he narrowly missed landing on top of Michael. He hit to the ground with a thud just to the right of him. Quickly he got to his feet, placed a foot on Michael’s hip and wrenched the chainsaw free of the vampire’s body.
He could feel the effects of Becker’s serum beginning to wear off. Pain wracked his body now and fatigue was quickly enveloping him. To exacerbate things further, the saw was starting to sputter. It was running low on fuel.
He quickly touched the slowing blade to Michael’s neck and managed to cut halfway through it before the chainsaw died completely. Michael was weakened drastically, but still alive. Ryan could see the stomach wound healing rapidly before his very eyes. The bullet wounds were already completely gone, leaving nothing behind except the holes in his clothes.
Travis appeared beside his brother just as Michael started to recover. The youth grabbed Michael by the head, took a deep breath, then wrenched his brother’s head so violently that it ripped clean off his neck.
Michael was finally dead.
Ryan peeled his eyes away from the macabre scene when he sensed his sister approaching. She placed a comforting arm around her boyfriend’s hips. Travis still clutched Michael’s head tightly in his hands. Eventually he let it go and it dropped to the ground, landing with the sound of an egg shell cracking.
Chelsea looked at her brother, her eyes that surreal mix of amber and blue. She opened her mouth and hissed at him, lethal fangs protruding from her jaw.
Ryan was completely taken aback by it all, seeing his sister transformed into what she was now. At that moment he really feared she was about to kill him. He waited, all the superhuman strength in him now gone. He was a mere human again, standing in the midst of two live vampires.
For a while no one moved and not a word was spoken. Ryan could cut the tension in the air with the knife he still carried in his pocket.
Then Travis suddenly turned to him and said,” You have Doctor Becker’s serum, don’t you?”
Ryan nodded and walked over to the doorway. From the bag he removed both loaded injector guns. Travis took one from him and immediately injected himself. A moment later he was lying on the floor, out cold. Chelsea glanced down at Travis for a long moment, then slowly she extended her arm to Ryan so he could administer the dose.
With his sister now lying unconscious on the ground, Ryan had nothing else to do but wait for the transformation to take place.
Fiv
e days later
Ryan was sitting on the balcony of his twentieth floor highrise apartment. He had a coffee on the table before him and no cigarettes. The sky was rendered an attractive shade of cobalt blue as the sun dropped in the western sky.
He’d just gotten off the phone to Tessa, his real estate agent. His late parents’ Sunshine Coast home was now under contract. That was a huge relief.
He’d also just arranged to have his stricken car towed to a wreckers. It was time for a new one.
His mind wandered back to the events of the other night and what had transpired between then and now.
The transformation in Chelsea and Travis had taken several hours. Both sweated profusely throughout the process and often appeared racked with pain and in the terrifying midst of unimaginable nightmares. The curious thing was, as each of them was on the verge of awakening, they both broke into beaming smiles before opening their eyes. It was like they had been reborn, and in a way they had.
Outside the
y’d found Selena wandering around aimlessly in the cow paddock. Travis had hugged his sister tightly and, to Ryan’s utter amazement, Chelsea had done the same to him. At first Selena wasn’t too happy about being human again, but when dawn broke and she felt the sun on her skin for the first time in ten years, her bitterness quickly dissipated as the endless night disappeared.
Last night Chelsea had brought Travis around for dinner and it had given Ryan a chance to get to know the young man a little better; and as a human, not a vampire. He could see his sister was very much in love with the guy.
Chelsea still harbored some ill feelings toward her brother, but she had softened considerably and Ryan was confident they could soon be friends again like they used to be. However, she still refused to return to school, despite the fact that Travis pledged to go to university and further his studies in medicine and genetic engineering.
Of course there had been a number of interrogations with police regarding the events of the other night and the deaths of Detectives David Marks and Scott Richards. Ryan, Selena, Travis and Chelsea were all interviewed on a number of occasions. In the end, with some serious and animated input from Doctor Marlon Becker, the police decided that the four weren’t crazy and pinned all the recent murders - including those of Marks and Richards - on Michael, Paul and Kelly. Which, in the end, was exactly how it had been anyway, and DNA testing proved that. Apart from one moment of madness from Selena, they were all innocent. Selena was off the hook and Ryan was eternally grateful the police never found anything to charge her with.
Both Marks and Richards were to be honoured with State Funerals next week. Marks was also credited with solving the mysterious murders in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
The story made national front page and headline news. Ryan was portrayed as some sort of hero. His phone had been running hot for days with offers of television appearances, magazine articles and even a book deal. His detective business had received a huge boost due to all the publicity. Calls from potential clients - both locally and interstate - were coming in all day long.
Right now Ryan was faced with a new dilemma and it made him smile. On his iPhone there were two recent text messages; one from Angela Cartwright and one from Selena Thorne. Both wanted to take him out to dinner.
Only problem was, which one was he going to choose?
THE END
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